When I was baptized, I wore a Winnie-the-Pooh T-shirt and jean shorts from Limited Too. The water in the man-made lake outside my church was cold and filled with goose poop, but I didn’t care. I was 12 years old, and I had waited long enough. I plugged my nose as my pastor father dipped me back in the water. I had gone in a Christian and come out a Christian, but in those few moments I had been baptized “into the death of Christ,” as the New Testament says, and in that small death of mine was the promise of new life.
Just like 12-year-old me, TV writers seems to love the idea of baptisms—especially when a character is looking for redemption. Take Empire, where Andre, the oldest son in the powerful Lyon clan, decides that the only way to escape the corruption of his family is to get baptized. His pastor makes him confront his family, telling Andre, “Your house ain’t clean if your closets are dirty.” Or take Daniel Holden on Sundance’s Rectify. The show starts with his Innocence Project–like release from death row after 19 years. As viewers, we don’t know whether he’s guilty, and much of the show deals with his reacclimation into society. In one episode, after a long fever dream of a night with a mysterious truck driver and the encouragement of his stepbrother’s wife, Daniel decides he will finally be at peace if he’s “cleansed.” He puts on a button-down shirt and heads to a tent revival, complete with bluegrass band and aboveground pool, and submits to the water.
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